Breathe
by No Illusions
Summary: "He wasn't conscious to feel the slip knot tightening, the rope putting pressure on his windpipe, cutting off his air supply." When a job goes wrong, Eliot's the one who takes the beating. Rated T for language, violence. Eliot-whump, team friendship.


**A/N: Rated for language. Just a short Eliot-whump.**

**Disclaimer: Leverage and its characters are not mine. **

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><p>The job was going south. No one could deny that anymore. The others had tried to ignore it, tried to ignore how the pieces of the intricate puzzle they'd created were falling apart, drifting away from each other, but Eliot had known. He'd developed an instinctive feeling about these things long ago. That was why he was so close when Parker's startled gasp came from over the coms, quickly followed by her yelp, and Hardison's panicked "Parker!" and Nate's "Parker, what's going on?" and Sophie's gasp and Parker's strangled "Eliot!"<p>

He was there in thirty-seven seconds. There were seven men. He'd taken three of them down when one of the others pulled a gun. Eliot growled in pain as a bullet entered his thigh, stumbling for a moment before shifting his weight to his uninjured leg and blocking out the pain. But he was no idiot. He couldn't fight like this for long, let alone escape.

"Go, Parker!" he growled at her, and she hesitated, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes. There was blood on her lip, he noticed, and it made him furious. "Go!" he bellowed again, and she went. Another bullet struck him in his shoulder. It was then that his leg collapsed on him. Something hard came in contact with his head and he lost consciousness.

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><p>Eliot regained consciousness to questions, which he easily ignored. The constant poking and prodding of his bullet wounds as they interrogated him was harder to ignore, and he groaned in pain each time they ground their fingers into the holes in his leg or his shoulder, but he'd survived worse.<p>

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><p>He hadn't taken out his com. That was the fact the others were most aware of. He hadn't taken out his com and the bad guys hadn't taken it from him and they could hear everything. The groans of pain were the worst until once he yelled and then Sophie was crying and Parker just looked bewildered and finally Nate had the presence of mind to tell Hardison to cut the girls off.<p>

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><p>Eliot yelled aloud when they snapped his finger. They wanted to know where the others were, what they'd been planning, who knew what. He didn't tell them.<p>

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><p>They needed to retrieve their retrieval specialist, and they didn't know how. There was no time for a con, and too much bad-guy muscle for much else. A smash and grab was the obvious thing, but Parker was the only one who could get in unseen (and seen was not an option), and she couldn't get Eliot out, not if he couldn't walk on his own. At least now Hardison and Nate were the only ones being forced to listen to Eliot's groans. Hardison wouldn't allow himself to be cut off. Listening to Eliot be interrogated, they thought that it couldn't get much worse. That is, until all they heard was silence.<p>

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><p>Soon they took a break, like he'd known they would. These were no professionals, trained to interrogate for days straight. These were hired thugs, and cheap ones, Eliot guessed, judging by the man who had hired them. Eliot found himself alone in the room, a boring concrete box that was empty but for himself and a few crates. It was then that he noticed the voices in his ear.<p>

"Dammit Hardison!" Eliot kept his exclamation quiet, lest the men in the other room should hear him. He was realizing in horror that he hadn't even tried to control the sounds he'd been making. He'd forgotten all about the coms. The others must have been horrified. "Why're ya'll listenin' to this?"

"We were hardly going to sever our only tie to you, Eliot," came Nate's reasonable voice.

"Tell me you idiots had enough sense to cut off the girls," he growled.

"Yeah, they can't hear a thing, don't worry, Eliot," said Hardison.

"You okay, Eliot?" Nate was doing an admirable job of keeping his voice from shaking.

"Yeah, Nate, just dandy," came the growled response.

"Can you walk?"

Even disregarding the fucking chair he was cuffed to… "I doubt it, Nate."

"Alright, Eliot. Hang tight, we'll—" But Eliot had stopped listening, because he heard footsteps behind him, which meant that the thugs were coming back.

"Nate," he grunted, his gruff voice quiet. "They're comin' back. If you've gotta talk, do it off coms. I need to focus."

"Just hang in there, man," came Hardison's voice, and then there was silence. Eliot focused on the thugs' conversation behind him.

"Boss says we've gotta get outta here."

"Time to kill him?"

"Yeah."

"Damn. I wanted to get creative."

"A bullet just seems too easy. Anyway, he's already had two of those."

"We can still get creative. We just can't watch." Eliot remained slumped forward, not wanting to draw their attention anymore than he already did simply by being there. Suddenly, something was passing over his head, but he still didn't move as the thing came to rest on his chest, and then he could see it: a rope, loose enough that it looked as though he was wearing it as a necklace. _What the hell?_

Then something hard hit the back of his head and Eliot slumped forward. He wasn't conscious to feel the slip knot tightening, the rope putting pressure on his windpipe, cutting off his air supply.

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><p><em>He was suffocating. He couldn't breathe. The weight on his chest was enormous, and he couldn't force his chest up enough for there to be room for air, he couldn't, there wasn't enough… With his remaining strength, he thrashed, but that wasn't working either, that wasn't helping any, because he couldn't move, but it was a different kind of weight, not a weight, but a pull, the pull of the manacles as he strained away from the table, but they held him back, and he still couldn't breathe, there wasn't enough air, and he was panicking, because he was running out of time, he was going to die here, because he couldn't move his chest, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe…<em>

_ Distantly, he felt the prick of a needle in his arm, and then suddenly the air rushed in. He gulped it as though it was the only thing in the world that mattered, and really, it was. His chest was working again, the weight was gone, and it was okay, it was okay… _

_ "You like that, Spencer?" It took him a moment to process the words as he gasped for air, filling his lungs over and over, unable to catch his breath. Not gibberish, he realized, another language, and his mind laboriously translated the Russian, and God he was ready to be done with this job. "A drug of my own design. Wondrously effective, don't you think?"_

_ "Bastard," he gasped out, and there were chuckles, and then another prick, and distantly a voice, telling him that he clearly wasn't ready to answer their questions. But then he couldn't breathe again, and he panicked again, and struggled, and the weight was back, and his chest wasn't moving, and God, he desperately needed it to move, but it wouldn't, and he vaguely wondered what had happened to his fingers and his toes and his lips, because they weren't there anymore, he couldn't feel them, he was burning, everything was burning, especially his chest, and why wouldn't it move?_

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><p>"Eliot! Eliot!" His eyes jerked open at the sound of Sophie's voice. He couldn't see them, only their feet: Sophie's heels, Parker's and Hardison's sneakers, Nate's ridiculous brown whatever-the-hell-they-were that he'd been wearing for the con.<p>

"Damn, man—" began Hardison, but he never finished, because then Eliot tried to take a breath. Sheer panic engulfed him, because he didn't understand, this shouldn't be happening, he was with the team, he was safe, but there was no air. He struggled, jerking back, but the pressure didn't dissipate, air didn't come, and he was kicking out with his good leg, his mind screaming _danger _and _whatthehellisgoingon_ and he couldn't move his arms, and when he tried, new jolts of pain shot through his system…

Suddenly he could make out Nate's voice saying, "Eliot, Eliot, it's alright, we've got you," but it was growing distant because the world was slowly turning black. There was a presence behind him, and he tried to fight it, but he couldn't, and then his hands were free and the pressure was gone from his neck, and the black was disappearing from before his eyes, and then Nate's voice again: "Eliot, Eliot, calm down, Eliot." Slowly, Eliot's breathing became less erratic. He lifted his head then, looking around at the team from behind the curtains of hair that was in his face. His eyes were wide, and he was gasping for breath as he struggled to remember his surroundings. He looked like a cornered animal. "Eliot, it's alright, it's okay." Nate's voice calmed him some, and slowly he could remember.

Eliot closed his eyes for a moment, regaining control. "Fuck," he whispered. After a moment, when he opened his eyes, they once again hid his emotions.

"We came as soon as we saw them leave," explained Nate. Eliot nodded, wincing slightly as he realized how tender his neck was.

"You're not dead." Parker sounded amazed.

"Are you okay, Eliot?" asked Sophie's worried voice. She was staring in shocked horror at the blood that had soaked his shirt and turned his jeans a strange, dark color.

"Yeah—" Eliot stopped to clear his throat painfully. "I'm fine, Soph."

"Alright, we need to get out of here. Hardison, grab Eliot's other arm." Nate and Hardison helped Eliot out of the chair. He leaned heavily on them, his injured leg refusing to bear his weight, Nate's arm tucked around his torso. Sophie hovered around them, while Parker walked backwards at the head of the little group, never taking her eyes off of Eliot.

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><p>Later that night, once the excitement had died down and the team had retreated to their various apartments to rest, Eliot found himself sitting on his couch, staring at his blank TV screen. Behind him he heard the door open. He froze for an instant, but then relaxed upon recognizing Nate's footsteps. The door closed again and the footsteps approached. Eliot didn't turn, waiting until Nate was in front of him to look up.<p>

Nate was surveying him carefully, checking his injuries. Eliot's leg wound was bound and propped up on the couch next to him. His shoulder had been bandaged, but it was hidden beneath his sleeve. His finger was in a splint, and beyond that there were only bruises, most of which Nate wouldn't be able to see. But Nate's eyes were lingering on his neck, on the ugly bruising there, the ring of black and blue.

"Nate." Eliot was proud to see that his voice sounded almost normal, despite the squashing his windpipe had taken earlier.

"Eliot. How are you doing?" Nate asked, sitting down on the second couch, which was at a right angle to Eliot's.

Eliot shrugged. "It's not like I haven't taken a beating before, Nate. Happens often enough."

"Yeah, but it's not every day that you're tied down and being interrogated while they beat you," Nate pointed out.

Eliot shrugged again, ignoring the way the motion shifted parts of his body that would rather not be shifted. "Actually, that's not particularly new either."

"For us it is."

"I'm fine, Nate. Seriously."

"Eliot, we've all seen you hurt before. We've heard you fight over the coms more times than we can count. But none of us have ever seen you freak out like you did today."

Eliot looked away. He was tempted just to blow Nate off, to kick him out, to tell him to stay the hell out of his business. But he didn't. He knew that his earlier panic had scared the team, and he felt like at least Nate deserved some sort of explanation. "I was in Russia," Eliot began, not bothering to specify the situation. Nate would guess soon enough, if he hadn't already. "They used this drug that made it so you couldn't breathe, so your lungs stopped working and you suffocated, even though there was nothing actually there, nothing to physically stop you from breathing. When I couldn't breathe…. I forgot where I was. All I could think about was that."

"Eliot." Nate's voice held no pity, for which Eliot was grateful. Although it took Eliot a moment to realize it, Nate's next words were a confession and explanation of his own. "You should know: Sophie and Parker heard the first part of it."

"What the hell, Nate?" Eliot exclaimed, his head jerking back towards the other man.

Nate looked uncomfortable. "We were distracted," he said.

"Why'd you tell me now?" asked Eliot.

"Thought you should know. Thought you had a right to know," said Nate with a shrug, getting up to leave. "You sure you okay, Eliot?"

"Yeah, Nate, I'm sure," said Eliot shortly. Then, suddenly, "Is Parker alright? I should have checked up on her. Looked like she had a busted lip, but I didn't get a chance to check for anything else. They had her for long enough that…"

"She's fine, Eliot," said Nate reassuringly. "I've already poked and prodded her."

Eliot snorted. "I'm sure she loved that."

Nate grinned, and then walked to the door. "Goodnight, Eliot. Call if you need anything."

"'Night, Nate," said Eliot as the door clicked shut.

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><p><strong>AN: I considered adding in more scenes of Eliot with the rest of the team, but the story felt done here, so I decided to stop it. I hope you enjoyed! Please review!  
><strong>


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